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Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Real Life Homeschooling - Day 2 - Organized Chaos

Organized Chaos.

I mentioned yesterday that my school supplies are practically everywhere.
Between three bookcases, a china cabinet, my bedroom and anywhere else I can
find room, there’s some sort of supplies practically everywhere in my house.

It’s not all my fault, to be honest. We are a family of five but when we
moved to this base, they did not have any available 4 bedroom homes and so we
were placed in a smaller 3 bedroom house. The idea of having any sort of extra
room to designate a classroom was out of the question. So our classroom is our
living room and the children now sit at a small patio table that I have set up
in the corner. Up until we purchased the table used from a yard sale site, the
kids would sit and do their work on the living room carpet.

Today as part of our Real Life Homeschooling, I thought I would show everyone
exactly how our “classroom” is set up..

I'm very careful when I take pictures for my blog.. Truth is, I'm ashamed of the fact that there are Kool-Aid stains on my carpet (and many times I'm using photoshop to try to remove them from my pictures).. The carpet might have have been vacuumed in the last week (or possibly two).. As you saw in yesterday's posting, there are times Ashleigh's hair is something straight out of a horror movie and she might be wearing the same shirt two or three days in a row. Or, if she did change clothing, many times the discarded clothes (especially Garrett's shirts) are tossed all over my living room.. This is NOT what I want seen in my pictures, especially when I know our family is viewing the blog.

But some things are hard to hide.. The fact that my bookcases look like an office supply store got hit by a 15 kilo-ton atomic bomb is always embarrassing to me and I hate when they can be seen in my photographs. Again, photoshop is my friend and I tend to blur my backgrounds..

Well, here we go.. no photoshop, no lightroom, no secrets.. Here is the real life homeschooling look into my chaos.

This is our table and bookcase #1.. The top two shelves belong to my husband and is where he vicariously throws all his stuff after he gets home from work. I don't even try to mess with those shelves, they scare me.. The lower three shelves are mine. The Second shelf is our school books we are currently using. One big change though is that the map has changed, we received a UPS delivery today and have switched to a world map since the kids already know all of their US Geography.

See that bobble head?? Now, how many homeschool moms can say they have a bobblehead of their pastor? Yup, that's my favorite Pastor, Mark Gungor.. and that bobblehead was an attempt to try to get the kids to think that Pastor Mark was watching them in the hopes that they would behave better.. HA YEAH RIGHT!! Oh Well, it's still cool to have a bobblehead of my pastor.. hehe

Bookcase #2.. Yes, it's a mess.. First shelf is school books we're currently not using.. Second shelf (with most of the junk on it) is the shelf with most of our reading books and a bag with crafting supplies.. The two other shelves are my kids shelves, mostly books that they read independently. The reason that third shelf is such a mess - because rather than stacking books properly, my kids choose to just shove them into the bookshelf.

I can't believe I'm showing this one.. But here is bookcase #3.. There's not so much homeschool on here, but there's some stuff on the top and second shelf.. If you can't tell, my husband has fish aquarium stuff everywhere, even though we have storage UNDER the fishtank *shrugs*.. lol

Even more school stuff.. The china cabinet can't hold china (not that I have china to put in it even if it did) so I might as well make use of it somehow. This is where most of the stuff I use to put together lapbooks go.

Here we have the turtle enclosure.. Now, last week, when I agreed to get the tortoise (Which my husband even used the educational aspect to the kids as part of the reason to get her) I was not aware that I would have a huge rubbermaid tub in the middle of my living room. This tub is currently in front of bookcase #2. The tortoise (Which we named Morla - if you know where that comes from leave a comment ) is cute though, so its okay, I just hope my husband finds a better place for her in the upcoming future.

Also in my living room is the frog enclosure.. Inside are two White's Dumpy Tree Frogs who eat crickets. Which means we have a lil container of crickets who chirp all night in the living room.. Who needs to go camping??

Lets not forget the fish tanks.. This is the big 70 gallon tank.. We also have a 10 gallon tank for our Betta

Here's the area I so lovingly refer to as The Jungle Gym.. This is always sitting in my living room. What you see here is three huge telescopes and tons and tons of accessories. It's wonderful when we were doing Apologia's Astronomy but now that we're doing Botany and have to go in and out of that patio door, it's a real pain in the rear end..

Speaking of outside that door, here's our garden.. It is literally right outside that sliding glass door. The kids and I have been going out here every day and taking care of our plants.

Here's a glimpse at what we're currently working with..

These are the kids stacks - it contains their binders that they use for daily drills, their art tablets for their watercolor and drawings, the lapbooks we are currently using for botany and their composition notebooks for their daily copywork. Ashleigh's also has an extra spiral that is the for the cursive writing curriculum she's currently working with for an upcoming review.

Here's our books for right now.. Mystery of History Vol 1, Apologia's Botany, ARTistic Pursuits, New American Cursive by Memoria Press and MCP Mathmatics.

Lapbooks and copy work for our Botany. Both kids have their own lapbook that they are working on.

Their daily notebooks.. This is where we are suppose to put our work each day but that requires me to find the hole punch (which half the time is hiding from me) and so many times papers are just tucked into the front, like they are here. (although I know where the punch is right now.. lol)

This is my "pile" and this is the ONLY time anyone here will see it.. LOL This is where I keep what I work on after the kids go to bed or where I put things until I put them up once we are done. This pile fluctuates depending on what I have going on, what I'm reviewing and what I'm reading.. and what mail I need to respond to.

So, there you have it.. Our mess.. our Chaos.. and our homeschool. It's messy but its fun and there's a lot of learning that goes on here. And its REAL!! :)

Don't forget to click over and see what the other members of the Review Crew have been revealing during our Week of "Real Life Homeschooling".. Here's 10 more homeschooling moms in addition to the ones yesterday :)

Discover real life in other homeschools with the Schoolhouse Review Crew bloggers! Join the blog hop to read more!

5 comments:

If it helps, I do the same thing when I post any kind of pictures online. I know I shouldn't, but I fix hair, make sure clothes are okay, crop out the mess, and blur or use effects to cover up anything I can't crop. I feel your pain!

Even so, thanks for sharing so honestly. it's nice to know that we aren't the only ones who don't live in a Pinterest-perfect home 24/7. In fact, it's a relief. :)

Thank you! We bloggers are usually so careful to stage our pictures that we often communicate that our house is spotless all the time. Mine isn't! So I feel better when I see someone else's reality. :-)